a soul worth saving
by cifan
Summary: Set after Goren and Eames leave the show. BA.
1. Chapter 1

**I am totally focused in on the end of this show. I have two other stories almost finished for that time frame, but then this one sprang up so I'm posting it first.  
**

**This is a story being told to us by Bobby Goren. The words in italics are recollections of earlier conversations. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own them.**

--

For some reason, Eames thinks that mine is a soul worth saving. I keep trying to convince her she's wrong, and that it's in her best interest to stop coming over, but she just ignores me.

Another thing, she's begun telling me that she loves me. When she says it, I explain to her that she shouldn't love me, but she claims she can't help it and that she wouldn't have it any other way.

She also gives herself to me now. I try to tell her that it's a huge mistake, and that she's going to regret it when I break her heart. But she just shakes her head and ignores that, too.

And every day, I thank God that she refuses to listen to me.

Here's our story:

Shortly after I retired from the NYPD, she came over to my apartment. It was late in the evening and I had been lying on the couch watching an old movie. You would have thought she'd be apologetic for showing up so late at night, but instead she was cool and calm. After the basic pleasantries, she asked me if she could watch the rest of the movie with me…

_"Sure."_

_"Looks like you were camped out on the couch, so I'll take the recliner."_

_"Um, okay." _

I lie back down and started the movie again. After a few minutes she got up. I thought she was going to the kitchen. Nope. Much to my utter shock, instead of heading in the opposite direction, she made a bee-line straight for the couch. I watched her as she settled herself right against me; her back to my chest. If she could have seen my face, she would have had some wise ass remark about it ("You better shut that thing or you're gonna start catching flies"). I was in a state of total and complete confusion, but she was acting like her lying next to me was the most natural thing in the world. Needless to say, I didn't pay much attention to the rest of the movie.

She came back two nights later with a Blockbuster bag in her hand…

_"Wanna watch another movie?"_

The smile on her face and the hopeful look in her eyes gave my insides a quick jolt of electricity and I couldn't help but smile back at her. I looked at the bag she was holding.

_"Sure, what do you have there?"_

_"Don't worry…it's not a chick flick…you'll like it. Trust me."_

I put the movie in and turned around. She was sitting on the arm of the couch and looking at me expectantly…

_"What?"_

_"I'm just waiting for you to lie down."_

_"Oh."_

My heart was pounding as I did what she expected me to do, and then I watched her get up off of her perch and lie down next to me again. I have to admit I was less panicked this time, but still confused. However, I didn't say a word. I decided to just enjoy every minute of having her with me.

_"You know what, Goren…I think we should do this more often."_

That's how this whole thing began.

--

**TBC…**


	2. Chapter 2

--

Her visits continued after that. She would stop over two, sometimes three nights a week. At first, I wasn't always in the living room. Sometimes I was working on something in the kitchen, or lying in bed with a book, but then she would show up and so I'd let her in and then stop whatever I had been doing and we'd settle in on the couch. It all became very routine.

After a while, I told her to just use her key to let herself in and so that's what she began to do. This is how our typical night went: She'd come in, put her keys in her bag, take off her coat and she'd put them on the kitchen table. She'd call to me to see if I need anything from the fridge, I always said no. She'd get herself a water or some tea, then she'd make her way into the living room. We'd chat a little about what was new in our lives, then she'd take off her shoes and join me on the couch.

I don't know when my nerves went away, but they did. After a while, I realized that having her there just made me happy.

You know…she never cared what I was doing, she'd just lie next to me. If I was watching TV, she'd settle against my chest like she did that first night and watch with me. If I was lying on my back reading a book, she'd snuggle along side of me and fall asleep with her head on my shoulder. She'd never stay the night though. I did ask her once. We had both fallen asleep and when I woke up it was about three a.m., so I told her to stay but she said no. I never asked again after that.

After about a month or so of her visits, I finally asked her why she kept coming over but I didn't get much of an answer from her. She can be very evasive when she wants to be…

_"I need a reason?"_

_"Well…it's just…we never used to do this."_

_"Does it bother you?"_

_"No."_

_"Then what's the problem?"_

_"There's no…problem, it's just-"_

_"Good, there's no problem. Now shut up so I can watch the movie."_

--

Then one night, just as I was feeling completely comfortable with having her with me (and missing her terribly on the nights she didn't come over), she pulled the rug out from under me yet again.

We were watching a movie in our usual positions, when out of the blue she turned herself around and kissed me. It was a beautiful kiss, it was slow and soft and perfect. It was a kiss that easily conveyed to me her desire to do a lot more than just kiss. I wanted that, too, but me being me, I couldn't just go along with her.

_"Eames."_ I said as I pushed her away.

_"Bobby."_ She firmly replied as she tried to kiss me again, but I held her at bay.

_"__Don't__."_

_"Why?"_ She actually had the nerve to look completely incredulous.

_"Getting…__involved__ with me…it's a horrible idea." _

_"No, it's not." _

She then turned back around and she finished watching the movie like nothing ever happened. I, on the other hand, was a complete wreck.

--

She behaved herself the next time she came over, but the following time she kissed me again…

_"I'll only hurt you."_

_"You're just chicken."_

--

And then the time after that…

_"You deserve -"_

_"Don't! Don't you dare say I deserve more that what you can give me! I know what I want, and I know __who__ I want. I'm a big girl, Bobby… I can take care of myself."_

_"I know you can take care of yourself, but I also know I'll hurt you and destroy our relationship."_

_"How can you be so sure?"_

_"It's what I do. It's what I've always done."_

_"Well…you don't any more."_

--

Then it got to the point that when she'd come over, I'd find myself dying to kiss her but I would never initiate the contact. I always waited for her. Most nights she'd kiss me, but there were some that she didn't. I didn't know why that was but I didn't ask. It wasn't my place to ask because, after all, I didn't deserve her to begin with.

Then there was the week she went away. She went to Disney with her sister and her nephew. I honestly thought I wouldn't miss her. Boy, was I wrong.

She didn't call me at all while she was away. All I got from her were a few picture text messages of her having a great time on various rides throughout the parks. Each one made me miss her more and more. That's when I knew I was hooked.

--

One thing you've got to understand… I learned early on in our partnership not to underestimate Alex. She has the uncanny ability to draw things out of people without them even knowing that she's manipulating them. So you would think, that I'd be on to her, but I wasn't. I guess what they say is true, love is blind.

What my very smart former partner was doing was slowly but surely breaking down my defenses. Alex knew me well enough to know that for the past few years, I've been filled with self-loathing and self-pity. She also knew that throughout my life, my mother did a number on my head. No matter how much I loved her, and how much I did for her, my mom never let a chance go by to point out to me that she preferred Frank and that she thought I was undeserving of any good I made of my life. Alex knew all of this, and was still willing and eager to work with me and my screwed up psyche. The worst part was that while I always knew she cared about me, I truly had no idea just how much. What a gift I had squandered.

So, all that being said, I didn't give Alex enough credit to know me as well as she did, so I never expected her to fight for my affection as strongly as she had. I also never expected her to use the tactics she was using.

I've always trusted her, that is why our partnership was as successful as it was. Our trust in each other was the key. But when she started visiting me, she gained a different kind of trust from me. She knew that I was a very private person and that I liked to be alone. So by coming to my home late at night, and letting me slowly become comfortable with her presence, she gained my trust in a new way. She taught me that even though she was there, I could continue to relax at home and she wasn't going to change that on me. And then…I came to rely on her being there to feel relaxed. Once she knew I was comfortable with her being in my territory, she pushed me a little more and kissed me. My initial reaction was to make her stop, to make her leave me alone, but she refused to cooperate with my need to run her out of my life. In fact, she seemed to enjoy my anxiety…

_"You know. You can touch me if you want to, Bobby." _She said one night as she ran her tongue along my jaw line. I could feel her warm breath on my skin, and the sensation of her soft, wet tongue running along my five-o-clock shadow was turning me inside out. I didn't let her know that, though.

_"I don't want to." _I did my best to sound unaffected by her actions.

She paused long enough to drag her tongue down my neck and kiss the hollow of my throat.

_"Understand something here…you're not going to get me to leave you."_

Then she put her face right in front of mine and rested her hand on my cheek_._

_"Bobby…You're a good man, and you deserve to be happy. I'm sorry that you were raised to think otherwise… I really am. But now I'm here to show you what it will feel like to be loved. Please let me do that for you."_

_"Alex…"_

The look in her eyes made me think that maybe she was right after all. I not only kissed her back that night but I also let my hands wander. I did my best to control myself I explored every inch of her. Her body felt so warm and so damn inviting. As much as I wanted to, I didn't slip my hands under her shirt, or into her pants. I did, however, kiss her over her clothing. Her writhing body did nothing but fan the fire that she lit in my belly a long time before. I felt myself letting go and thinking that maybe, just maybe she was right after all.

After she left I felt awful about what I did.

I couldn't help it, I still didn't think I deserved her.

--

**TBC…**


	3. Chapter 3

--

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Eames amazes me. Her sheer tenacity when faced with my constant rebuffing of her advances is the kind of unwavering drive that warriors are made of. Her determination to make me understand, and accept, her feelings had finally begun to wear me down.

I do have to hand it to her. She knew how to play me. She knew the right buttons to push and when to push them. She knew when to be aggressive with me, and when to let me be by myself.

So, let me get back to our story:

The last time she had been over, she pushed me…hard. I felt myself lose control and she knew that I felt horribly guilty in doing so. So when she didn't come around for almost a week after that, I knew her reasoning. She was giving me space to work through the events of the other night, as well as my feelings toward her.

I was missing her terribly during her absence, so when I heard her at my door, I thought I was going to lose my mind with happiness. But, because I'm an idiot, I didn't tell her as much. I just brooded and acted like our last night together was the worst thing that could have happened.

She didn't buy any of it.

Oh…she went through her normal routine; the coat, the tea, the casual questions. But then when she came to me, she kissed me before settling down against me. And it wasn't a 'hi, how are you' kind of kiss…it was the 'where'd we leave off' kind.

It was the kind that started my heart racing, and my entire body aching for her all over again.

She had lay there for a little while, watching the movie, but it didn't take long for her to turn back toward me. After all, neither of us were paying one bit of attention to the TV at that point. Our kiss left both of us breathless, and so when she turned back around, I did what I knew I had to do.

I got up off the couch, then took her hand and led her to my bedroom.

--

I thought she seemed a little shy at first. She stood there, just inside the room, and quietly watched me as I closed my blinds and turned on a small lamp that sat on my dresser.

But when I looked at her again, I couldn't mistake the look in her eyes. Apparently, she was not feeling one bit shy.

I moved back over to her and slowly undressed her and then myself. Then I leaned my naked body against hers, ran my hands into her hair, and kissed her. As we kissed, I backed us toward my bed. Once I felt the back of my knees against the mattress, I wrapped my arms around her, and then spun her around and laid her down.

--

I woke the next morning to an empty bed.

I knew she wouldn't stay. She was being her typical self. She left, thinking space was what I needed. That was the only time she read me wrong.

--

Alex didn't show up the next night. And that, of course, freaked me out. I paced for hours with my phone clenched in my fist. I'd open it to call her, then close it immediately. Then I'd do it again. And again. Then, I actually worked up enough nerve to punch her number in (speed dial #1), but I ended up hitting 'End' before I could hit 'Send'. Finally, I tossed the damn phone on my kitchen counter and went to bed.

She was killing me. I wanted her. I wanted her back in my apartment, and back in my bed, and back in my arms. But at the same time, there was no way in hell I could tell her that. I was too afraid of the consequences; too afraid that once I said it, she'd finally look at me with eyes wide open and say, "What the hell was I thinking?". Because really, wasn't it just a matter of time before she did?

It was four in the morning, and I was still wide awake when I heard my door unlock.

Then I heard her walk quietly down my hall and turn into my dark room. Then I heard her unzip her sweater and toss it on the ground. Her jeans were next. Then the almost imperceptible unfasten of her bra. Then she climbed into bed with me. Then she let me take her again…

_"I love you, Bobby."_ She said those words as my body rocked with ecstasy a short time later. I almost didn't think I heard her correctly. But then, I knew I had. And it started me freaking out all over again.

I didn't answer her.

But she must have expected me to reply because her stunned silence was all I could here. It took over the room and it took over my brain, and as badly as I wanted to hold and chant into her ear, 'I love you, too', I couldn't get the words out. I was afraid that if I told her how I felt, it would only tether her even stronger to me, and I still didn't think that that was fair to do to her. So I ended up just lying there quietly, and I knew that I hurt her more than I ever had before.

But because she was used to my inability to share anything remotely associated with personal feelings, Alex didn't let on how terribly I had wounded her with my silence. Instead, she rolled toward me and molded herself to my side.

We lay together for a little while, but then she finally got up, gathered her clothes and got dressed. She didn't indicate she wanted to stay and I didn't ask. Instead, I got up, threw on my sweatpants and walked her to the door…

_"I told you this was a bad idea. I told you I'd hurt you."_

Then she looked at me with confident eyes. _"Who said you hurt me?"_

I quirked an eyebrow at her. _"But…you told me you loved me but I didn't answer you back."_

She simply shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. _"You will…eventually."_

Then she got up on tip toes, kissed me quickly and left. I was so confused by her.

--

Over the course of the next few weeks, our evenings sometimes included making love but sometimes they didn't. I have to admit, even though I was fighting her tooth and nail, I loved the nights we ended up in bed. I loved having her in my arms, and holding her while she made love to me. I loved feeling her body as she straddled me, or as mine covered hers.

Despite my lack of reciprocation, she often told me that she loved me. I kept telling her she shouldn't waste her affection on me, because I was incapable of loving her back, but she would just kiss me and say things like, "You can't help who you fall in love with", or "The heart wants what the heart wants". What was I supposed to do with those kinds of answers? I mean, really.

--

By this time in our story, it was mid-summer. Alex was getting ready to take a vacation, and she had rented a home in Rhode Island with her sisters and their families. A few weeks before she left, she asked me if I wanted to join them…

_"Ahhh…__no__."_

_"You know you sound like such a curmudgeon when you say it like that."_

_"I __am__ a curmudgeon."_

She made a 'pffft' sound. _"It's all an act just to get out of being social like the rest of us human beings."_

_"Well then how's this…Thank you for the invitation but I'm going to pass."_

_"Suit yourself. You know you could have had a great time… playing in the waves all day, and playing with me all night."_

Her words stopped me in my tracks. She knew they would. _"So…you'll be in a bathing suit all day?"_

_"All day, every day."_ She said demurely.

_"And at night?"_

_"I have a big king sized bed all to myself, and can't decide if I'm going to sleep in just a tank top and a little pair of panties…or maybe nothing at all_."

I closed my eyes as I attempted to reign in my dirty imagination.

_"Take lots of pictures on the beach."_

_"Curmudgeon."_

_"Told you."_

She called me two days before she left but then she didn't call me at all during her vacation. She left on a Saturday and by Friday I thought I was going to go out of my mind. I couldn't wait for the next day to come so I could see her again. I had already decided that I was going to call her around noon, find out when she expected to be home, then meet her at her house with an arm full of roses and tell her that I missed her. After all, up to that point in our "new" relationship, she'd done everything and I'd done nothing. It was the least I could do, and more so than anything, I wanted to do that for her. I wanted to show her that I did care, and that I did miss her.

So you could imagine my surprise when I called her at noon on Saturday and she told me that she was staying two weeks, not one…

_"__What__?"_

_"Geez, Bobby…Don't you pay __any__ attention to what I say?"_

_"I'm sorry, I just don't remember you telling me you were going away for __two__ weeks."_

_"Hmmmm. Maybe you don't remember because when I told you, I was doing that thing with my tongue and your ear that you love so much."_ I swear, I could see the smirk on her face right through the phone.

I swallowed hard as I imagined just exactly what she was referring to. When I spoke again, my voice was deeper than usual, _"That was playing dirty, Alex."_

_"Well…you usually like that about me."_

I couldn't help but groan in the phone and I heard her giggle at my frustration.

When she spoke again, she no longer sounded like the sex-vixen I know that she can be. Instead she sounded bright and cheerful. _"Well…one way to remedy this would be to get your ass to Rhode Island."_

_"No... That's still not gonna happen. But… when you get back, I would like do something special with you…if that would be okay."_

She practically purred into the phone_. "That would be more than okay." _

_"Alright then, I'll get planning. See you next week."_

_"Yup, see you next week."_

_"Oh…and Alex? Um…I miss you."_

_"Thanks, Bobby…and I love you, too."_

_"I, uh, I didn't say that."_

_"Sure you did."_

She hung up before I could argue with her. And I would have argued, too, even though I knew she was right.

--

**TBC...**


	4. Chapter 4

--

I know it must sound like an exaggeration, but I promise you that it's not. The day Eames came home from Rhode Island was one of the happiest days of my life.

To have her with me, to hear her voice, to be able to touch her and kiss her again brought me nothing but joy, pure and simple. Her vacation made me aware of a few things. Things about Alex that, up until then, I had been conveniently overlooking.

The first thing was that I was in love with her. I was completely and without a doubt head-over-heels in love with her. But, thinking about it further…I guess I should amend that slightly. Maybe a more accurate description of this realization was that I was finally willing to believe that I had a right to love her, and that maybe I could make her happy.

The second thing that I became aware of was that I hated it when she was gone. I wanted her with me as much as possible, and I was willing to go any where she asked me to go from then on.

The third thing I learned was that I needed to tell her all of this, so that she didn't give up on me.

--

_"I missed you."_ I said after I kissed her with more urgency than I ever have.

_"I can kinda tell."_

_"No…no. I mean, I __missed__ you"_ I realized that I sounded like a lunatic but I still kept rambling as I carried her to the couch and plopped her down on my lap, _"I missed everything about you. I missed the sound of your voice, and your laugh, and the way you look at me when I exasperate you."_ I paused for a minute to kiss her again because she was making that face, right then.

_"I missed you lying next to me at night… hearing you breathing…feeling your heartbeat…I missed the feel of your hair against my chest when you fall asleep on top of me… and I missed those little noises that you make when you sleep."_

_"I make noises?"_

I smiled and became more animated. Raising my voice in excitement, I answered her, _"Yes! You make these…little noises… that are sweet and soft and ridiculously adorable…And I missed the way you raise your eyebrows at me when you think I'm being stubborn but you're too kind to call me on it. And…I missed the way you smile at me when you're really, really happy…when you're so happy that you start off with a slow smile and I think that maybe that's all I'm gonna get…but then your cheekbones raise up as your smile gets wider, and then you don't just smile with your mouth closed but you get your teeth in on it, too…and just when I think you couldn't be any more beautiful, you're eyes light up and it's always right __then__ that I realize that I am the only one that get's you to smile like that and, honestly… I can't tell you how __happy__ I get from knowing that."_

I guess my rant gave her pause because she just sat there looking at me with a 'what the fuck?' look on her face. I took the opportunity of her stunned silence to plant another nice, hot kiss on her.

_"So when can I take you away?"_ I asked once we came up for air.

_"Where are we going?"_

_"Well, that's a secret. But I'll tell you, we can do this trip in a long weekend."_

_"Hmmm. So no hints?"_

_"I'll only say that it's not too far, and that you can pack clothes for weather that we're having now…So…when can you take another day off?"_

_"I guess when ever I want. One of the perks of working as a consultant means that I don't have to ask anyone's permission to take a day off…I get to tell them when I can and can't be there."_

--

So I took Eames on a very romantic long weekend. One of my buddy's is a helicopter pilot, and he had access to a whirly bird that was sitting idol for the week. I asked him to fly us out to the north fork of Long Island and he said he'd love to.

I didn't tell Alex where we were going at first. When we got to the heli-pad and she saw the chopper her eyes lit up...

_"We're going in __that__?"_

_"Only the best for you."_

The look she sent my way melted me. She had me hook, line, and sinker, and I couldn't have been happier.

My friend brought us to Orient Point, which is the very end of the north fork. I had a rental car waiting for us there, and we drove it to out hotel in Greenport.

Our weekend was idyllic. We visited the nearby wineries, walked through the town we were staying in, had some fun dancing at a local restaurant's dock party, and managed to also spend quite a bit of time in our hotel room enjoying each other. After all, I was trying to make up for not seeing her for two whole weeks, and for feeling like such a heel for not going too Rhode Island with her. I did feel bad about that. But, part of why I had turned her invitation down was because at the time, I didn't want to give her false hopes about us.

But after those two weeks from hell without her, I realized just how stupid I had been. After all the years we'd known each other, and all the time we've spent together over the past few months, I should have been able to understand just how much we meant to each other. I also should have been able to see that no matter what I did, and no matter how much I tried to believe she was better off without me, the plain truth was that I loved her and she loved me.

So much for being a genius…

_"Alex."_ I said to her on the first night we were away. We were lying in bed, basking in the afterglow when I pulled her to me and whispered in her ear_. "I love you, babe."_

She pulled her face away from mine so she could look me square in the eyes. _"So…did you just figure that out? Or are you __finally__ willing to admit it?"_

I kissed her tenderly before answering her. _"The second one. I've loved you for so long…and I know I always will."_

_"Come here."_ She fell onto her back then rolled me on top of her and ran her hands through my hair. Then she smiled at me. _"Thank you for trusting me with your heart… I'll take good care of it."_

_"I know you will...and Alex…I know it's not easy to love me."_

She gave me one of those big smiles that are mine and mine alone, _"It's easier than you think."_

--

I'm sharing all of this with you on the eve of our first child's college graduation. We got married shortly after that trip to Long Island. We had a beautiful ceremony; Eames' family, our closest friends and a few old colleagues from Major Case were there. Captain Deakins proposed a toast to us. He was very funny when he took full credit for our union. He said he knew from early on in our partnership that we had something special. Truth be told…I did too, I just didn't know how to handle it. And if it wasn't for Alex, God knows if we ever would be where we are today.

We had two children early on in our marriage. John was born almost a year to the day of our first anniversary, and Sara came a year after that. 'Barefoot and pregnant' was what I teased Eames about. I told her I liked her that way, and that we should have ten kids just because I thought she was so beautiful when she was expecting. She, on the other hand, had different plans. She said she would have loved more kids, but given our advancing ages, she had to stop at two. She said it wouldn't be fair to the youngest kids, to have their parents donning walkers at their high school graduations. Then she had some snarky remark like if I had only gotten my ass in gear and hit on her years earlier, we could have had more kids. I 'm just happy to have what I have…her and a wonderful family.

Some days, I'll still sit back and watch her, and thank God that she's mine. I would never have believed I would be as lucky as I am. I have Alex, and our children, and a happy life. It's more than I ever dreamed to be possible. And if she wasn't the stubborn woman that she is, and if she didn't pursue me with reckless abandon, I don't know if would have ever allowed myself to have what we have together.

I will still, on occasion, tell her that I'm not worth any of it, and she still rolls her eyes at me. Thank God she still ignores me.

So that's our story…I hope you enjoyed it.

--

**The End**


End file.
